Why is women's health underfunded?

It’s National Women’s Health Week, and we have a question: why is women’s health woefully underfunded? Meanwhile, Canada joins the U.S. in sensible regulation of gene-edited animal feed—leaving Mexico as the North American outlier. (597 words, 2 minutes, 59 seconds)

Why don’t we invest in women’s health?

It’s National Women’s Health Week—a time to explore the woeful gap in research and investment, and what biotech and the government are doing about it.

Why it matters: Women’s health is poorly understood and poorly researched, receiving less than 1% of the venture capital investment in biopharma.

Women face unique challenges—endometriosis, fibroids, menopause, cervical cancer (to name just a few). Twice as many women have Alzheimer’s disease compared to men, and they have different heart attack symptoms.

And women’s health is a great a business opportunity—after all, 27% of health products generating more than $500 million in annual revenues are for women’s health, and women control 80% of household health decisions, per an episode of the I am BIO Podcast.

What biotech is doing: BIO’s Women’s Health Initiative Task Force seeks to foster greater innovation in women’s health. BIO and members helped build the Women’s Health Innovation Opportunity Map, a public-private initiative to identify unmet needs and gaps.

What government is doing:President Biden’s March 18 executive order on women’s health focuses on coordinating federal agencies with $200 million to promote research.

The theme of this year’s Women’s Health Week is empowering women to take charge of their health—and we can start by getting them in charge of health companies. Women comprise 49% of the biotech workforce, but only 34% of executives and 20% of CEOs, a BIO report finds. The biotech sisterhood is bringing together women CEOs to push this forward.

Listen to the I am BIO Podcast episode about why we must talk about (and invest in!) women’s health.   

More Health News:

Reuters: U.S. House Committee advances BIOSECURE Act
“The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability voted overwhelmingly to approve the BIOSECURE Act, which now must get through the full House and Senate before President Joe Biden could sign it into law.” Read the Committee’s press release.

Canada joins U.S. in sensible regulation of gene-edited animal feed

Canada announced a decision earlier this month to treat gene-edited animal feed the same as other types of feed.

ICYMI: The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on May 3 published final guidance on regulation of feed, which says gene-edited plants produced for animal feed are regulated the same as any other novel feed crops. This means gene-edited plants are not regulated as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Joining the club: This guidance aligns with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory approach for animal feed produced with gene editing.

Meanwhile in Mexico: Mexico is ignoring scientific proof of safety of biotech corn, planning a total ban on GMO corn for food and phase-out of GMO corn for animal feed as early as this year. 

BIO’s view: “Absent any new scientific risk assessment from the Mexican government, it is hard not to conclude that the import ban on GM corn is really intended to block American farmers' access to Mexican markets,” in violation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, says Nancy Travis, BIO’s VP for International Affairs.

President Biden’s Thursday: Meeting plaintiffs from the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision and their families at the White House.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: The House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee markup of 23 bills is to include discussion of a bill to extend priority review vouchers for pediatric diseases.